A Tough Job Market for Discredited Bush Lawyers
As many of you have pointed out, Alberto Gonzales is having a tough time on the job market. I’ll get to that, but first I want to remind you of two other experiences former Bush lawyers have had after they left. First, there’s Harriet Miers, who after a four month job search, ended up where she started, at her old firm of Locke Liddell. She found a job, sure, but it didn’t look like any other big firms were eager to snap up the former White House Counsel.
Then there’s William Haynes. He found something right away–as Corporate Counsel for Chevron. But Chevron doesn’t want you to know they’ve hired Haynes.
When a company recruits a prominent government official, it’s usually eager to put the word out immediately. But Chevron Corp. took more than a month to publicly confirm that it had hired William "Jim" Haynes II, the controversial former general counsel of the Pentagon. Chevron officials say that they didn’t make a big deal of Haynes’ hiring because they didn’t think it was newsworthy.
[snip]
The U.S. Department of Defense announced Haynes’ resignation as general counsel Feb. 25. Two days later Chevron general counsel Charles James sent a memo to the company’s management committee stating that Haynes would be coming aboard as chief corporate counsel. Haynes, who will report to James, will manage the 45-attorney legal department.
Chevron spokesman Kent Robertson says that the company did not make an external announcement about Haynes’ hiring. "I don’t think we thought it was newsworthy," Robertson says. Word of Haynes’ employment by Chevron began appearing in blogs last week, and was reported on Newsweek‘s Web site April 5.
Mr. Robertson, you may not want the general public to know where Haynes ended up, but particularly with the news that Dick Cheney has leant his personal lawyer to Haynes to represent him in matters pertaining to torture, it is certainly newsworthy that Haynes ended up at one of the oil companies Dick and Bush have been making rich of late.
And then there’s Gonzales–he’s been looking for a job for 9 months. The article on it doesn’t saw what we’re all thinking: law firms are holding out until they’re sure that Gonzales isn’t about to be indicted for perjury and worse.
“Maybe the passage of time will provide some opportunity for him,” said one Washington lawyer who was aware of an inquiry to his firm from a Gonzales associate. “I wouldn’t say ‘rebuffed,’ ” said the lawyer, who asked his name not be used because the situation being described was uncomfortable for Mr. Gonzales. “I would say ‘not taken up.’ ”
The greatest impediment to Mr. Gonzales’s being offered the kind of high-salary job being snagged these days by lesser Justice Department officials, many lawyers agree, is his performance during his last few months in office. In that period, he was openly criticized by lawmakers for being untruthful in his sworn testimony. His conduct is being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General of the Justice Department, which could recommend actions from exonerating him to recommending criminal charges. Friends set up a fund to help pay his legal bills.
Asked about reports that law firms have not taken up feelers from Mr. Gonzales, Robert H. Bork Jr., a corporate communications specialist and his spokesman, said Mr. Gonzales was talking to many people about the next steps in his career. “He is considering his opportunities in law and business,” Mr. Bork said, “but after many years in public service he is considering his options carefully.”
He said Mr. Gonzales “looks forward to the conclusion of the department’s inquiries and getting on with his life.”
Shorter Bork Jr., Gonzales is looking forward to some conclusion of the multiple inquiries into his behavior, so firms can decide whether they want to hire him independent of fears that he’s about to be indicted.
The Gonzales article also says something else which accords with my recent suspicions. Gonzales (and Rove) have been doing the talk circuit of late, even though every time they get a $30,000 speaking gig, students protest about wasting resources on war criminals. I’ve long suspected that some Bush functionary has been behind the placements, providing a kind of gravy train for two such unpopular Bush loyalists. The NYT article on Gonzales makes it sound as if these speaking fees are Gonzales’ biggest income right now.
While he has not taken any full-time job, friends said he was probably receiving as much income from speaking engagements as he did as attorney general with its annual salary of more than $191,000.
Mind you, I’m not terribly sympathetic. There are lots of honest, hard-working, non-criminal folks who have been looking for a job for the last nine months, and they haven’t had someone forcing speaking engagements for them down universities throats.
But it is a testament to the legal world’s perception of both the quality of the lawyering Bush relied on and the likelihood that we haven’t heard the end of the consequences for such lawyering.
Could we all chip in and send him to a speaking engagement in the Hague?
That would be 30 grand well spent!
That is an interesting proposition, hypothetically speaking.
There are now a plethora of private military/private security companies, loyal to nothing but the highest bidder; makes one wonder when a bidder might employ their services to render certain criminals reposing in the U.S. for prosecution in venues offshore. And if they’re not employed, these criminals won’t be missed at the office the next day.
The great irony of the sort of structure the Bush Administration and their ilk tend to foster is that they are often the greatest threat to their own security.
Unlike the monolithic “we must all hang together or we shall all surely hang alone” mentality of, say, reclusive cults with atypical sexual norms that they otherwise resemble, they build these elaborate webs of quasi independent groups that will attack anyone and anything at the turn of a hat and have, literally, no ties to bind them to their putative masters.
Then some poor little shark somewhere down the food chain bleeds in the water and the fun begins. If they do start actually disappearing though, the likely cause will be internal (the day before they’re scheduled to testify is traditional) and not due to a bunch of DFH clicking on a paypal button.
And history indicates that if they are disappeared to some overseas destination they will only make it about half way. More likely they will be found dead of multiple self inflicted shotgun wounds and friends will all say that they had been “despondent.”
– MarkusQ
Anywhere outside the country might be good … I think there are some people in France that would like to talk to him. Not sure if they will pay 30k thought but might find a place for him to live for a few years.
How’s he gonna pay all the high priced lawyers he’s surely gonna need to defend his indefensible actions while a “public” servant? He’d better get a LOT more of those speaking engagements. The more he has to run the gauntlet, the happier I am.
The article also mentions that Gonzales has a defense fund.
I wonder if Barbara Comstock is in charge of that, too?
With Matlin hosting Washington-weenie BBQs to raise money for the fund.
Amen. Let’s just get the prosecution started!
Contrast Gonzales’ likely job prospects with those of Matt Diaz, the Navy JAG lawyer who released the names of the Gitmo detainees in a Valentine’s Day card. It was great to see Diaz (who turned to a career in the law after his father, who sits on California’s death row, was convinced to waive his jury right by a public defender) get some recognition and press coverage last week.
Hopefully that coverage will lead to a job offer which nets him a quarter of what Fredo will make. I was sorry to hear in the NPR interview with Diaz that he now works as a substitute teacher in Florida.
Glad to see you make that contrast. I, too, heard the NPR interview, and it made me unutterably sad. He lost his license to practice – and people like Yoo and Gonzales are still strutting around unconvicted and still holding their licenses.
I was thrilled byond measure to see the article saying Gonzales is not getting job offers. But of course, He gets those outrageous speaking fees so he isn’t hurting.
Perhaps we could take donations and bring Matt Diaz to speak at Net Roots Nation? Or any other occasion where a courageous truth-teller would be a welcome speaker? Of course, we DFH’s can’t pony up 30 grand, but we could get some decent amount, I bet. ideas, anyone?
Interesting that the Bush loyalty to friends extends so well into their after Government lives.
My heart bleeds for these poor guys … not!
I’d certainly be wary of hiring anyone who’d been high up in this maladministration – or even not so high up, if they left ‘to spend more time with family’; they’d be likely to have something large, legal and nasty following them.
(Lemme nitpick a little, here: Dick lent his lawyer to Haynes. Although there may also have been some leaning involved ….)
It seems that dick can/will take care of his own and bush can’t/won’t. Is there a message/lesson there?
The other day, when everyone seemed to be going on about going after Yoo, et als., on ethics charges, I was thinking what could be done. (Digressing – there’s a good discussion on the ethics charges issue over at Balkin.)
Specifically, I was asking myself what could be done to the administration’s staff of criminals and thugs wearing suits (or, as EW (I think) put it “Torqemadas in single-needle suits and hand-made English shoes”) to rein them in and tie them up, Gulliver-like, until such time as they could be well and properly gotten to via the criminal, ethical and civil processes.
I came to the conclusion then, though I didn’t say so, that ostracism was the proper course. You may have heard of “The Silence”, which is a now-banned discipline which West Pointers used to use on fellow cadets accused of, but not found guilty of, honor code breaches. Sort of the punishment for winning by a Scotch verdict. In “The Silence”, no cadet would talk to the formerly-accused regardless of the circumstance that would have occasioned the conversation, totally isolating him from the community at large. The idea was to drive the allegedly-dishonored man out.
And, anyone who’s spent even a little time inquiring about the Amish of Pennsylvania and elsewhere is surely familiar with the concept of “shunning”. In that, the person who has chosen to follow non-Amish ways is ostracized from the community.
I can speak from personal, elementary school experience. When your community decides to shun you, there are few things more painful than that.
Given the amount of wrong which Gonzo, Yoo, Addington, and all the rest have done, unless and until more formalized processes can be put into motion to exact some measure of justice, the informal justice of ostracizing them is certainly a more effective way of informal punishment than merely sitting around complaining that nothing is being done.
The problem is, these people take care of their own. Just as Gonzo ears almost 200 grand on “speaking engagements” that his connections get him, so will their always be space at National Review, Fox News, as well as profitable inspirational speeches given to the right wing of tomorrow…
These people are all gonna be just fine… …unless we start getting some officials in cages.
I would find it a hell of a lot easier to shun these jerkwads if their ass was in a prison cell. And in that regard, I have a modest proposal. I say that the United States should not close GITMO. After all, there really is a need for a place to warehouse the “worst of the worst”. I think we have a pretty good idea of exactly who they are too, and there isn’t an arab in the bunch (unless we include Bandar Bush).
You know, this story about Gonzo’s toxicity really is pretty amazing. A law degree from Harvard and he can’t get a job anywhere? Even after essentially begging? Wow. I know one of the guys behind the infamous letter that Gonzales’ Harvard Law classmates published in the Washington Post (as a quarter page ad at their own expense I might add). AGAG will not be getting any help from any of them; in fact, there have been private discussions among them to make sure that he is “shunned”. Maybe Ray Ray can Hunt him down a job as a city prosecutor or something in Rayville or whatever he is calling his new nation state down on the border.
Fter watergate, Gordon Liddy was receieved back into “society” even after being a convicted felon and doing time in prison. After Iran COntra, Ollie North was so wel recieved he ran for office.
Most of the major evildoers in the current adminsitration are vetrans fo those prior scandals. Had those people been shunned and forever dismissed from power, we would not be inthe mess we are in today.
Shunning, long memeories are useful. The thing is we were all raised to believe in forgiveness and second actrs, We are antion that believes in redemption
Sribe and LHD, get real. Shunning, my ass. The GOP takes care of its own. When you have a perceived talent or carried water for the Beltway crowd, you’ve got a job for life; Col. North with Fox Noise, Adm. Poindexter buried in the bowels of the DoD ad nauseam. The Nixon and Reagan years should have shown us the necessity to force investigation and prosecution for law breakers. Shunning will only work on people of conscience, not politicians, and their lackeys!
I never said it was the “be all and end all”, rather, just a place to start.
And if no lawyer, law professor or student will give Yoo the time of day, it will get pretty lonely, even in that ivory tower.
There may be a way to shun Yoo effectively, but not all of us can do the shunning.
I’d like to know if Yoo is licensed to practice law — and if licensure is required to teach law at Stanford, or by California’s college review board (or whatever governing body provides oversight on CA’s public universities).
And then I’d like to know if any lawyers in CA could review Yoo’s actions to determine if he can be disbarred.
It seems ridiculous to me that anybody with such a fundamentally flawed understanding of the law is still qualified to teach at a school of Stanford’s stature — but if they need help with recognizing the magnitude of this instructor’s incompetence, perhaps we can provide certification with disbarment.
UC: Regents of the University. (Appointed by politicians: you have to make it hurt them.)
And I’ll put money on the politicians in question being hand-picked by the Parsky Commission.
Ahem.
I am so bloody sick of the many layers of this onion.
Damn. I’ve had Stanford on the brain since the chatter about Condi for Veep. Ugh. And this crap and this crap doesn’t help.
Maybe it’s cognitive dissonance, too; who’d ever think Yoo would fit in at Berkeley?
The city is more liberal now than the university. (All those student radicals have become senior citizens.)
We can’t really shun Yoo (or the rest of the administration) because we are never in their august presence. What we can do at this distance is to shame them. One step on that path is the work of showing the incompetent malevolence of the torture memos, and making him and the people at Boalt respond. They will not defend Yoo, even Dean Edley admits that the memos are pathetic. Maybe they can be encouraged to shun him as a way of making their views known to him.
I will also add that, if I were looking for a job, I don’t think I would hire the lame spawn of Bork as my PR flak. Gonzales really is one dumb bunny. Jeebus. Heh heh, take a look at the CV of
DoofusDork Jr., his greatest accomplishments in life are that he was a gopher boy for Carla Hills (wife of Mr. Chiquita, Hot Rod Hiils) and that he directed “the litigation pr strategy for the former manufacturers of lead paint”. Very impressive.Small world, bmaz; I also know someone from that H’vard law school class who was a financial contributor and signer to the ads that some of Gonzo’s former law school members placed in prominent media. Gonzo is likely to find himself shunned at future law school reunions.
But I love this from EW:
I sincerely hope that Barbara Comstock, who views campaigns as ‘prosecutions’ that require ‘oppo research,’ is in charge of much of Gonzo’s welfare. May she do as shoddy and hapless a job for Gonzo as she did for Scooter Libby!
Comstock, IMHO, is a Cautionary Tale in what happens when people mistake politics (which should be about articulating a vision of the future and then discussing how to get there) for a ‘brutal, machismo competition’ in which all rules are cast to the winds. Her ‘oppo research’ and ‘prosecution’ of Al Gore in 2000 were symptomatic of the Rovian view of politics, which is inherently self-defeating; what’s the point of gaining territory if all you end up with is scorched earth? Comstock ought to end up in an orange jumpsuit for enabling the BushCheney conspiracy that’s done so much damage these past seven years.
Comstock appears to be incapable of creating any basis for trust; I can’t think of a finer ‘asset’ to assist Gonzo. Birds of a feather, those two.
Thanks for also noticing this. Also, I wonder if he’s being denied jobs or if organizations are simply waiting to see what happens to him. In short, I don’t think it’s a denial as much as a delay. His loyalty will be rewarded eventually with a job and until then he’s not missing any meals as there are plenty of orgs who will wait to hire him but aren’t afraid to shell out speaking fees.
I sent Matt Diaz an email today asking if he wants me to take up a collection. Hopefully the award and the press coverage will persuade someone to step forward now with a job as I know he has a family to worry about. I’d just like to see him make as much in a year for full time work as Fredo Gonzales makes for one speech. That would be plenty to live on.
Nobody in the Legal Community will hire Gonzo?
Golly wolly…
Nobody in the Military Community will hire Haynes?
Golly wolly…
The Pope won’t eat with the man who received God’s Command to make Aggressive War?
Golly wolly…
It looks like We’ve got US a Confab of Pariahs emerging from the mist…Gee, I wonder what the cause?
Golly wolly…
Can we hope that Mukasey runs into the same trouble finding a job for his current dishonesty concerning FISA and calls made prior to 9-11? At th very least, he might have to settle for going back to work for his old companies the way Harriet Miers is.
Kind of amusing to see that Miers was praised for her blogging skills while Presidential spokesperson Dana Perino was panned for hers. Apparently, Miers had the knack of “speaking” in a human-”sounding” voice whereas Perino was reportedly fulla facts & figures.
It hard out there for a pimp